Posts Tagged ‘producer’

She slides her cold fingers under an unsuspecting belt inserting a hot magnet of our lesbian kiss.

The bass pulses through my chest as the sun beats down on my shoulder as my heart explodes with the colors of the magnetic unity of the Gay Pride Festival.

This year like every year, my first thoughts of venturing out to the Gay Pride Festival tended to be negative: the heat, the crowd, the aching feet, the lost texts, the lost friends, the smells of debauchery. I often forget the positive magnetic electricity of unbridled freedom of expression, of camaraderie, of love. One of my recent personal goals has been to become one with that positive flow of energy without taking things personally to avoid being sucked down the vacuum of fear and negativity when facing the challenges life has to offer.

A year and a half ago I was cast as the lead in a gritty independent feature film called Lot Lizard. Since then the film changed directors twice, filmed for a couple of weeks, got funding, lost funding, almost got major funding, got post production taken care of, did some more filming a year later, lost post production, got post production funding, lost post production funding, etc, etc, etc. Oh and changed titles twice. The film is now called, Black Tar Road. Anyway you get the idea.

Amber Dawn Lee, the writer, executive producer, and co-starring actress, finally decided it was time to get this film finished and she couldn’t do it by herself. She wanted me to come on as, dare I say it, PRODUCER. I had put so much time and effort already into this film, so kicking and screaming, I finally succumbed. I was doing it anyway.

We had no money, neither of us wanted to be a producer, and to make matters worse our working styles and personalities are completely different. Her creative inspiration comes in waves and spurts and her brain is in ten places at once. I think linearly and organized and like to focus on one thing at a time. We have had our disagreements.

So now here we are at the West Hollywood Gay Pride Festival with 95% of the film shot. We are handing out refrigerator magnets on the staircase landing of a packed PYT, the pride lesbian club of choice, of our Black Tar Road poster. We are hoping the magnet with our hot lesbian kiss will get us a few more likes on our Facebook page.

The magnets were my idea and on the spot, Amber, came up with the inspiration of inserting them into the unsuspecting lesbian cleavage, pocket, or pants. They loved it.

Once Amber and I learned to stop taking things personally, we were able to stop fighting and start focusing our attitudes in a positive direction. We have begun to understand and accept that we think differently and have come to realize that our differences are actually an asset. Opposites do attract if you allow each other to be their own person. Our good intensions have started magnetically attracting people to our film production. We found directors and crew to donate their time and people to donate amazing locations. Due to our hardships we were forced to adapt and create a better film.

I have also found it is important to not wallow in the why this happened or why that happened and move forward into the now. All of the people who offered money or promises that were lost along the way of making this film started with their own original good intensions. They contributed or did what they could. It is not personal. It is just something that happened. The more I am able to be grateful and find the love the happier I am, the more inspired I become, and the harder I work.

This film and myself are both works in progress and we have a long journey yet to go. Amber and I are still learning and making mistakes but trying to do them with a spring in our step and love in our hearts. We have enlisted interns and volunteers and are organizing and logging endless amounts of footage, putting together trailers, coming up with promotional ideas, and getting ready to start a fundraising campaign for editing and postproduction.

Our independent feature film, Black Tar Road, is a junkie love story between two women, a truck stop prostitute and a trucker, two lost souls, who battle their addictions and their ties to the local drug dealer, to find love in the middle of nowhere. Charlie is addicted to heroin and Heather is addicted to speed and they become magnetically attracted and addicted to each other. They learn to accept each other for who they are. I play the character of Heather, who eventually finds faith through finding the love within herself. Through playing this character and the ups and downs of producing this film I found faith in the love within myself. I am feeling that gay pride, that camaraderie, and that love that unites every one of us. The magnetic flow is unstoppable on this long Black Tar Road paved with good intentions.